Shockley, McCormack lead Trojans at track states
The Pahrump Valley track & field team took home multiple medals during the 3A state meet at Liberty High School on Saturday afternoon.
The Trojans competed against 22 other schools from around the state. They had representatives in 15 of the 36 combined boys and girls competitions.
The girls team finished eighth out of 17 schools with a team total of 40 points. The eighth-place finish and the total score are both improvements over last year when the Trojans finished in ninth place and scored 36 points.
The Elko Indians won the girls team state championship in dominant fashion with 88 total points, 23 points more than the next closest team.
Senior Elizabeth Shockley had the best finish of any Trojan in the competitions. She took home second place in the discus throw event.
Shockley threw a personal record distance of 116 feet, 6 inches, beating her previous record of 100 feet, 3 inches.
Aspen McCormack was the only other female athlete to medal in an individual event for Pahrump. She took home two bronze medals.
McCormack finished in third place in the high jump competition with a successful height of four feet and 10 inches. She ended her event just one inch shy of the champion, Shayla Kantarevic of Durango.
McCormack’s second third-place medal came in the triple jump event. She finished with a distance of 32 feet, 9 ½ inches.
The last medalists for the girls track team were the 4×400-meter relay race team.
The team of sophomores Dakota Fernandes, Dakota Fodge, Sasha Strain and junior Paris Coleman ended the event with a fourth-place time of 4:15.83.
On the boys side of the competitions, the Trojans finished in a tie for 14th out of the 18 schools. Pahrump Valley scored a team total of 17 points.
The Moapa Valley Pirates won the team championship, finishing the state competitions with 123 team points. Moapa and Spring Creek ran away from the rest of the field. The Spartans scored 119.5 points, making the two schools the only ones who scored more than 70 points.
Pahrump Valley’s best finish on the boys side of the competitions came in the 4×800-meter relay race.
The team of freshmen Aydon Veloz, Jace Wulfenstein, Benjamin DeSantiago and senior Jacob Gray ran the event in 8:41.80 for a fourth-place finish and a medal.
The Trojans had a team qualify for all four relay race events for the boys.
They finished in fifth place in the 4×200-meter race, finished sixth in the 4×100-meter race and finished seventh in the 4×400-meter race.
The only Pahrump Valley boys athlete who qualified for an individual event was junior Mickey Skinner.
Skinner set a personal record in the long jump event, jumping a distance of 20 feet, 2 ¾ inches for a sixth-place finish.
He bested his previous best distance of 19 feet, 10 inches that he set just one week prior at the 3A Southern regional championships.
To see the outcomes for each Pahrump Valley athlete’s event, you can head to athletic.net and search the school’s name.
Contact sports writer/editor Danny Smyth at dsmyth@pvtimes.com. Follow @_dannysmyth on Twitter.
